Olympic24: Armitstead wins again, World Cup success for Nicholls

20 March 2016 / 08:03

Lizzie Armitstead kept up her winning run as she successfully defended her Trofeo Alfredo Binda title to claim her second UCI World Tour win of the season, while Jamie Nicholls secured his first World Cup slopestyle victory of his career. Read a review of the news from the last 24 hours here.

Lizzie Armitstead retains Trofeo Alfredo Binda crown

Jamie Nicholls rounds off World Cup season with impressive slopestyle win in Czech Republic, with Billy Morgan third

Katie Ormerod continues the medal rush with second in the women’s slopestyle

Great Britain finish World Indoor Athletics Championships with three medals in total

Paul Drinkhall and Tin-Tin Ho pick up table tennis national titles

Armitstead sits atop World Tour standings

Lizzie Armitstead continued her recent run of form as she defended her Trofeo Alfredo Binda title in Cittiglio.

The 27-year-old, who won the world road race last year, began her season by winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and then triumphing in the opening race of the UCI World Tour season – the Italian one-day classic Strade Bianche in Tuscany.

She then abandoned the second World Tour event due to sickness but bounced back over the 112km race on Sunday.

The Brit pulled away from the chasing group in the closing stages to catch leader Jolanda Neff and then cross the line one second in front of American Boels-Dolmans teammate Megan Guarnier with Neff in third.

Nicholls claims maiden World Cup slopestyle win

Snowboarder Jamie Nicholls celebrated the first World Cup slopestyle win of his career on Sunday as he triumphed in the Czech Republic.

Nicholls notched 87.14 on his second-run to see off the USA’s 2016 slopestyle World Cup title winner Chris Corning by 0.01 in his first full World Cup season at the Audi Snowjam in Spindleruv Mlyn.

Fellow Brit Billy Morgan completed the podium places in the final World Cup event of the season after recording 84.91.

“I liked the course set-up as I'm more the rail rider, so it did fit me a lot,” said Nicholls, who finished fifth in the standings overall. “Also the atmosphere here was nice, the crowd was super loud which I also liked a lot.

Ormerod enjoys success in women's slopestyle

The success continued for Great Britain with Jamie Nicholls’ cousin Katie Ormerod taking silver in the women’s freestyle at the World Cup finalie.

Ormerod finished on 73.55 as she was beaten by Silvia Mittermueller, whose total of 78.54 clinched her maiden World Cup title.

Britain’s Aimee Fuller and Rowan Coultas were also seventh and eighth respectively in the Czech Republic.

"I'm stoked to put down the run I wanted in the World Cup and come second,” said Ormerod.

“I'm almost more stoked about finishing third in the overall FIS ranking for this season!"

Elsewhere in the men's alpine skiing, Dave Ryding rounded off a strong season with a 15th-place finish in the slalom in St Moritz.

Bramble in personal best form at World Indoors

Great Britain were unable to add to their medal tally on the final day in Portland as they finished the 2016 World Indoor Athletics Championships with three medals.

Seven British athletes were in action with Stephanie Twell and Lee Emmanuel both finishing sixth in their respective 3,000m races.

In the field events, Isobel Pooley could only manage a clearance of 1.89m for tenth in the high jump although Dan Bramble recoded a fifth round personal best of 8.14m – as well as 8.12m in an earlier round – for sixth in the long jump. Read more here.

Drinkhall and Ho crowned singles champions at National Champs

Paul Drinkhall took his number of national men’s singles titles to five after succeeding at the English National Table Tennis Championships.

The 26-year-old saw off England teammate and fellow World Team Championships bronze medallist Sam Walker 4-1 after the latter had earlier ended the three-year reign of Liam Pitchford at the semi-final stage.